


Abigail Cockbane

by Eager_Question



Category: ContraPoints
Genre: Contrapoints - Freeform, Gen, Gender Critical, Racism, TERF, Tiffany's Law, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21510502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eager_Question/pseuds/Eager_Question
Summary: This is one of what will hopefully be many attempts at working within the frame of ContraPoints while expanding on the arguments she tends to put forth.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	1. Abigail Cockbane and The Freedom Report

**Jackie Jackson** : Hello everyone. I'm Jackie Jackson, and today in the Freedom Report, we will be discussing whether trans women should be allowed in women-only spaces. Our guests are Doctor Abigail Cockbane, who recently published a collection of essays titled _"My Vagina's Monologues"_ , and Adria Finley, host of the popular YouTube series " _Intersectional AF_ ".

So, let us just pose the question. Abigail, should trans women be allowed in women-only spaces? 

**Abigail Cockbane** : If by trans women you mean men in drag taking estrogen pills, then no, Jackie. Men are disproportionately abusers, murderers and rapists, and opening the doors of women's shelters to them is a terrible idea. 

**Adria Finley** : Your whole argument is based on the idea that trans women are necessarily men. Trans women are women. The idea that trans women are just scary violent rapists waiting to pounce on women is this weird fantasy you just came up with. 

**Abigail** : They _are_ necessarily men. Women are oppressed because men want to control our wombs. The entire system relies on biology, a biology you do not have.

 **Adria** : Doesn't that totally undermine your supposed feminism, though?

 **Abigail** : Excuse me?

 **Adria** : I mean, you keep saying that women are oppressed because of biology but that's patently ridiculous. Women aren't oppressed because of biology. Women are oppressed because of society. You are, for all oppression-related purposes, identical to women in Iceland, whose lives are the happiest and most comparable to their male counterparts, and to women in 5th Century BC Athens, who were treated and thought of as deformed men.   
  
Human biology is mostly the same across the whole planet. Humans can reproduce with humans from anywhere else in the planet, for example. And yet, the oppression of women varies from nation to nation, community to community, and even family to family.  
  
If women were oppressed because of biology, feminism wouldn't be about making new laws and changing norms. It would be about giving women free steroids and guns.

 **Abigail:** You act as if much of modern feminism wasn't tied up with abortion rights, the availability of healthcare, problems with medical methodology that generalizes from the male "default", and long-term, reversible contraception. Steroids are unhealthy, but guns or other self-defense tools like pepper-spray and TASERs have helped make women more equal in the world.

 **Adria** : Yeah, that's why Iceland is the capital of female equality. Because of pepper-spray.

 **Abigail** : Well, what do you propose?

 **Adria** : Looking at laws and working within the general culture and priorities of society.

 **Abigail** : But looking at laws is just another way of looking at violence. If rape laws help women, because then they can persecute their rapists--and they don't, because most rapists get away with it--then that is only because the violence of the state is being used against the men in question.

 **Adria** : Even though there is always violence somewhere eventually, people also just grow to see some things as normal and some things as not normal. When misogyny becomes 'weird behaviour' and men see it as worth denigrating, the enforcement of such laws will become secondary to the cultural shift they brought about.

 **Abigail** : Yeah, that's why there's no racial wage gap in America. After all, if you call someone a racist, they do get upset...

 **Adria** : People don't actually think racism is bad in those terms though. What most people think of as racism is this caricature of the thing, where unless you're shouting slurs and killing people, you're "not really racist". It's not a state of progress, but one of denial. People in America also think sexism is bad, but until it is seen as kind of stupid and gross as well, it will remain the type of cruel power-play that a "real man" is willing to engage in.

 **Abigail** : It seems to me that this is all just a bunch of waffling to get tall mannish impostors into women's shelters.

 **Adria** : Well, maybe if you were more pragmatic and less obsessed with being exclusionary, you would see that denying help to people who need it is enabling abusers.

 **Abigail** : And maybe if you were more factual and less focused on denying biology, you would realize that there's no reason why men in wigs should be any less prone to *being* abusers than more typical specimens of that sex.

 **Adria** : Is there literally any evidence that trans women are exactly as prone to violence or abusive behaviour as cis men?

 **Abigail** : as it happens, yes. TIMs and TIFs were both found to be more "criminal" than real women [in a study in Sweden.](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885&utm_source=mandiner&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=mandiner_201812)

 **Adria** : I know that study. It counted literally every crime, including petty theft. There was drastically reduced criminality for trans women once they started providing proper mental health resources and society got less oppressive towards them in [nineteen-eighty-nine](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6q3e8v/science_ama_series_im_cecilia_dhejne_a_fellow_of/dkuurno?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x). Trans women are orders of magnitude more likely to be murdered than to murder someone.

 **Abigail** : What about cases like [Poverello House,](https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article219560720.html) where a man pretending to be a woman harassed women at a shelter?

 **Adria** : What about cases like [Valerie Solanas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Solanas), who tried to murder Andy Warhol? I can cherry-pick too. Radical Feminists aren't exclusively angels.

 **Abigail** : She was schizophrenic.

 **Adria** : Funny how it suddenly matters that _she_ needed help.

 **Jackie** : I have to agree with Adria here, Abigail. If mental health is an important factor when explaining violent behaviour for cis women, surely it should also be a relevant variable when explaining violent behaviour for trans women, or for men, for that matter. It seems to me that the idea you are bringing to the marketplace here is that people with vaginas are essentially victims, while people with dicks are not. Even if we were to agree that that's the case generally, I don't see why that would generalize to trans women, who are definitionally atypical.

 **Adria** : Jesus, did you just agree with me?

 **Jackie** : It's Jackie, and I don't agree with people, only with models, but I do think the model Dr. Cockbane has proposed has a few glaring flaws, and you articulated them well.

 **Adria** : Wow... I guess I just didn't expect you to actually give me a fair shot in this supposed marketplace of ideas.

 **Jackie** : Why else would I invite you in my show?

 **Adria** : ...I'm not gonna give you ideas.

 **Abigail** : You know, you like to talk a big game about Intersectionality, but if you were really feminist, you would be abolishing gender instead of reinforcing it.

 **Adria** : What do you want me to do, dress in white robes with a shaved head and speak purely in binary?

 **Abigail** : _Or_ maybe just dress however you want in as many pink dresses as you want, without pretending that makes you a woman?

 **Adria** : You know, Kat Blaque has this [really great video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rmuxLrvQV0) in which she talks about how every time she went somewhere when her gender marker said 'male' and she looked like she looked, people would nod and try to be polite, but also _not hire her_. While it would be nice if someone who was born with a penis could dress how they like, and participate socially how they like, without necessarily having to claim a metaphysical status of womanhood, the fact of the matter is that when you tell trans women to 'just be feminine men', you are not only denying our experiences, but you are asking us to risk _greater discrimination_ because of all the stigma associated with men participating in femininity. When you don't pass as a woman, you don't get treated as a man with a weird fashion sense, you get treated as having relinquished your right to personhood.

 **Jackie:** Now, let's not get carried away here. Not getting hired for a job is not a human rights violation.

 **Abigail** : It doesn't matter, because wearing a dress still doesn't make her a woman!

 **Adria** : I never said that my choice of clothes made me a woman. Also I am literally wearing a man's shirt right now. I'm a lesbian.

 **Abigail:** What? no, You're not. You're a male. _I_ am a lesbian.

 **Adria:** Well, I'm a woman and I enjoy intimate relationships with other women, so what do you call that?

 **Abigail:** Playing pretend! You are pretending to be a woman. You are pretending to have a female embodiment. And I understand that males are socialized to see themselves as disembodied entities of truth and rationality, and that trans women almost definitionally hate their bodies, but denying the existence of your male body for either reason is to deny reality itself. And it's offensive and _appropriative_ for you to go around claiming to be a woman because you feel like it. 

**Adria:** You keep trying to push this biological essentialism but even if I were to agree that this is all pretend somehow, it is my life and it seems to work more or less as well as any other woman's life. If this supposed game of pretend is as effective as any other thing, and it corresponds to my internal experience--

 **Abigail:** Internal experience my ass! That's not a _thing_. There is no _internal experience_ of being a woman. There is just being a person and having to deal with the shit women are shoved into. 

**Adria:** Well, I am a person, and I have to deal with a lot of those things, so by that logic...

 **Abigail:** No. You pretend to deal with these things. You feel _affirmed_ by sexism, because it makes you seem legitimate in your own eyes. But, _newsflash_ , I hate being viewed as a passive, submissive, vain, hysterical, emotional, decorative, objectified, pathetic weakling. As do most women. Your claims that you 'feel like a woman' are incoherent nonsense that legitimizes the oppression of women so that you can have _something_ to use as a tool to play pretend.

 **Adria:** I don't like being seen a a sex object any more than you, I just would like to be able to go to a safe place if I get abused.

 **Abigail:** None of this would be an issue if we abolished gender, so that you could be a man in a dress with some physiological modifications, and everyone would be fine with that except women get to keep their spaces intact.

 **Adria:** You keep harping about this pipedream Utopia of abolishing gender, but it's just another way of saying you want to abolish trans people, who are _the_ most oppressed on account of gender. It's like saying you want to abolish borders, so we should start with not giving immigrants citizenship. You're taking the people most fucked over by the system, and saying that their oppression is bad because the system is bad, and then using that argument against the system as a justification for oppressing them more.

 **Abigail** : For that to be true, trans women would have to be in that supposed vulnerable position.

 **Adria** : Literally all of the evidence says that they are!  
  
**Abigail** : So you're using the fact that men murder, beat and rape other men as evidence that I'm somehow the unreasonable one for not wanting men in women's spaces? This is male privilege incarnate, Jackie.

 **Jackie** : Sorry what? I was retweeting Sam Harris.

 **Adria:** It's not male privilege to want to be treated with dignity.

 **Abigail:** Isn't it? What you call dignity is everyone bending over backwards to accommodate your delusions.

 **Adria:** Then what are trans men, exactly?

 **Abigail:** Lost lesbian sisters in need of some guidance.

 **Adria:** Seriously? You know, trans women aren't men, they don't have--

 **Abigail:** Oh really? You're going to tell me that you know what it's like to be nine years old and get cat-called by a cab driver? You're going to tell me that you know what it's like to be fourteen and have edgelords asking you if the frequency of their masturbatory sessions is concerning, because you didn't know to tell them to fuck off at the first red flag? You know what it's like to get called _feisty_ by the man who used to be your favourite professor, to be told how good it is that you're _not like other girls_ , to have everyone be _surprised_ that you can string two sentences together at a conference? You're going to tell me that you know what it's like to spend literally _decades_ agonizing over calorie counts and eating salads because you've spent your whole youth being told you should be desirable to men? To have teachers disregard your math skills the moment you develop breasts? To have to get a diagnosis in your twenties that you should have gotten as a four-year-old because everyone just assumed it was _your fault_ if you didn't--

 **Adria:** No.

 **Abigail:** \--What?

 **Adria:** I don't know what that's like. I have no idea. And I'm sorry you had to go through that. But your suffering does not justify keeping trans women away from resources they need if they are abused--which they are statistically more likely to be than cis women.

 **Abigail:** What about cis women's right to feel _safe_ in those spaces?

 **Adria** : Why do you think trans women pose such a threat, anyway? Studies don't back this up.

 **Abigail** : Well, my life backs it up!

 **Adria** : What?

 **Abigail** : I have been abused by men, I have been mistreated by men, and when some of those men decided to call themselves women, that didn't make them less abusive or brutish. All it made them was better able to interact with vulnerable women. And when you tell women that they need to allow abusive men in their spaces, because "trans women aren't really like that", even though there are plenty of us who have been mistreated by trans women, it feels like you're gaslighting us.

 **Adria** : Well, I'm sorry you had those experiences, but they're not representative of the whole. I doubt that there are actually that many instances of trans women attacking cis women for no reason. Black women commit more crimes than white women, do you think we should go back to segregation because some white women might feel uncomfortable?

 **Abigail** : Black women have been institutionally kept from wealth and resources for literally centuries. Obviously their higher crime rate is an artifact of circumstance.

 **Adria** : And trans women haven't?

 **Abigail** : Well, seeing as how most of them used to be white men, and benefited from things like a higher education, managerial positions, or being encouraged to pursue the sciences at an early age... No?

 **Adria** : You act as if trans women weren't regularly kicked out of their homes by their families. Trans women are more likely to be raped, more likely to resort to sex work, more likely to be homeless, more likely to be arrested, and more likely to be murdered, than cis women.

 **Abigail** : You mean trans women of colour are.

 **Adria** : I'm not going to let you whataboutism your way out of this. You're a white cis thin middle-class assistant professor with a PhD.

 **Abigail** : Yes, and I've accomplished that while having men insult me, mistreat me, harass me and oppose me every step of the way.

 **Adria** : --you accomplished being white?--

 **Abigail** : --So excuse me when I don't want to give _those same men_ access to resources that I only got because of their sins against me and my _real_ sisters. I am scared of men. When they catcall me, when they approach me drunkenly as I am walking down the street, I fear for my safety. And you keep telling me that trans women are different, but I have spoken to trans women--in fact, I have spoken to you!--and the way they behave is much like men do.

 **Adria** : Well, it takes time for someone to re-socialize. You probably haven't spoken to trans women who are five or ten or fifteen years into their transition, because they would all know to stay away from you.

 **Abigail** : So you want me to give potential--and sometimes actual--abusers hundreds of opportunities to hurt people in that time?

 **Adria** : ...I want you to give people a chance to be their true selves. To be better. Cis women are potential abusers too. I bet those trans women who hurt you--if they indeed did it unprompted, which I doubt, seeing how you are behaving right now--almost certainly did so out of a place of self-loathing. They hated themselves, and they hated their lives, and they took it out on you. That's not an excuse, but it is an explanation, and if that's the case then the best course of action is to help them transition. To make the world such that fewer trans women grow up hating themselves and their bodies and living angry, miserable lives in which their self-loathing takes the form of misogyny. 

**Abigail** : So I just have to accept that there's one more cohort of men who won't actually be held accountable for their actions?

 **Adria** : You have to accept that women exist whose lives are different from yours. Whose needs are different from yours. And that instead of hating them reflexively, you should probably wonder how we can make this better for everyone. You're a feminist, you know that overly punitive measures are more likely to increase recidivism and don't lower the crime rate. Hating on trans women won't make the world safer. We know that because we've spent centuries doing it, and the period of time when we became more accepting as a society has also been the period of time when violence has gone down among basically every cohort, consistently, for decades.

 **Jackie** : That's a _great point_ , Adria!

 **Adria** : Okay, seriously, am I being punked?

 **Abigail** : But _dost thou bleed_?--  
  
**Adria** : --This again?--

 **Abigail** : --Yes! All of your claims, all of your arguments are based on this nonsensical dogma that 'gender identity' matters more than biology!

 **Adria:** This is some TERF bullshit, nobody in the trans community actually disagrees about the biology of any of this. All we're saying is that we should get to live our lives how we want to and without having to face literally murderous amounts of discrimination.

 **Abigail:** TERF a slur, and here you have yet another way in which TIMs try to silence women.

 **Jackie:** Wow, Adria, I didn't know you had it in you to be so politically incorrect.

 **Adria** : It's not politically incorrect to call TERFs what they are.

 **Abigail** : Well, then it must not be politically incorrect to call men what they are.

 **Adria** : That is not the same and you know it. It's not just transphobic to--

 **Jackie** : Whoa there, hold on a second, Adria. I don't think we should be calling anybody names here. Accusations of bigotry are serious business.

 **Adria:** She's been calling me a man for the whole--

 **Jackie:** \--Do you believe you're transphobic, Abigail?

 **Abigail** : I do not, Jackie.

 **Jackie:** See? We're just having a discussion in the marketplace of ideas.

 **Adria:** Wait--why do you accept the self-identification of people as bigoted or not, but not as the gender they are?

 **Abigail** : The point is that this transgender dogma of gender identity is nonsensical at best.

 **Adria** : It's not a dogma, lots of different trans people have radically different perspectives regarding their lives.

 **Abigail** : Then explain to me one of them that doesn't rely on weird phenomenological nonsense, and maybe I'll reconsider your position. 

**Adria** : The entirety of gender is weird phenomenological nonsense!

 **Abigail** : No! And that's the problem with you people. You keep saying that you and I both have a gender identity, and that we share that, and that makes us both women. But I don't have a gender identity! I don't have your brain magic! All I have is the real world, and how people treat me. Gender is a sociological construct that subjugates people, it's not something you _feel_.

 **Adria** : Wait, are you seriously saying you don't have a gender identity? 

**Abigail** : Yes! 

**Adria** : ...and you wouldn't prefer to be a man? 

**Abigail** : No, ew! I would prefer if people saw me as a man, because it would be more convenient and gay men are usually a little better at taking care of themselves, but I don't want to be a hairy, large, ugly, scary man. If society was matriarchal I would love being a woman.

 **Adria** : ...And how do you feel about your body? If--if you got breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy, how would that make your feel?

 **Abigail** : Well, they're a fucking hassle so _might as well_ just chop them off if they threaten me on top of that.

 **Adria** : Abigail… have you ever considered… you might be agender?

 **Abigail** : a what?  
  
**Jackie** : Well, time's up. There you have it, dear viewers. We may never know whether we should actually have to pay tax money to protect trans women's lives, but the important thing is that we talked about it. Now, Adria, have you been reading Steven Pinker?  
  
**Adria** : ...I'm going to go now before you start to believe we're friends. 


	2. Tiffany Tumbles and the Saul Saltzman Show

**Saul:** Hello and welcome to the Saul Salzman show. I am Saul, and my guest today is Tiffany Tumbles, the famous YouTube star of the series Trans Tips With Tiffany. I have Chosen Tiffany as a guest because you all seem intent on demanding that I pick more right-wing guests. Tiffany is a Transgender woman, she is a supporter of President Trump, she is someone who has been shunned by the transgender community, and to top it all off, she actually likes my show. 

**Tiffany:** I do, Saul, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear about the left from a rational person who isn’t screaming all the time, in this the year of our Lord twenty-seventeen. I don’t agree with much of what you say, but I’m happy to be here and maybe I’ll teach you a thing or two. 

**Saul:** Right. In any case, let’s just start. First things first, Tiffany, did the transgender ban that Trump implemented in the army change your opinion of the president at all? 

**Tiffany:** Well, yes. When the muslim ban happened, I just thought, look, it’s okay. It’s just the terrorists, after all, and it’s not like we owe them anything.

 **Saul:** _Oh_ my God.

 **Tiffany:** Hmm? 

**Saul:** No, go on. First they came for the muslims…

 **Tiffany:** Thank you, Saul, as I was saying, I believed Trump when he said that he cared about our rights. But with the military ban… it just kind of crossed a line. 

**Saul:** Do you plan to change your voting habits because of this? 

**Tiffany:** Well, probably not, if I’m being honest. 

**Saul:** ...Really?

 **Tiffany:** What am I going to do, vote for AOC?

 **Saul:** I don’t believe she has a bid for the presidency, but... let’s put that aside for now. You have been quoted in the past as saying that, and I quote, “the world is not ready to hear about trans lesbianism”, is that correct? 

**Tiffany:** Well, yes.

 **Saul:** Do you think the world has changed since you last said that?

 **Tiffany:** Well, no, not really. 

**Saul:** Right. So, could you tell me, what exactly makes the world not ready?

 **Tiffany:** Well, I just don't see it being ready. Women wear pink and men wear blue, women smell like flowers and men smell like cars. Lesbians are already bucking the norm by being gay, and butch lesbians twice over. The idea that you can be a born-male, transition, and then behave like a man and want women, well, it's too out there for most cis people in my experience.

 **Saul:** Okay. What would be evidence that the world has changed enough to be ready?

 **Tiffany:** Well, I just don't see it happening.

 **Saul:** So you have literally no falsification criterion. 

**Tiffany:** The world is the way the world is, Saul. I can only live within it.

 **Saul:** You realize that a hundred years ago, blue was a girly color, right? 

**Tiffany:** Yes, and then it became a boy color and it stayed a boy color for the next hundred years.

 **Saul:** so what you're saying is that in sixty years, when you're talking to your grandchildren or your friends' grandchildren, they will come to you and say 'hey Aunt Tiffany, can you tell me what it was like to live in twenty-twenty, when _all of social norms froze forever and didn't change at all for the next several decades_?'.

 **Tiffany:** Well, I'll probably be dead in sixty years, so I don't really care either way.

 **Saul:** Surely you will be alive in ten years though. And so much progress has happened in the last ten years alone. I mean, Kat Blaque and Mia Mulder talk about how the ideal version of the trans experience only a few years ago was one of living in hiding and never letting anyone know your deep dark secret. Now, people like you exist, there’s far more visibility… 

**Tiffany:** Yeah, and with more visibility come more people being able to clock me. You know, in a weird way, my life was easier when nobody knew what a non-binary person was.

 **Saul:** ...That's an interesting point. After all, it _is_ the case that binary transgender people can benefit from presumptions about gender, and I understand that creates some conflict within the trans community, between those who want to assimilate and those who want to abolish the current notions of gender altogether. How do you navigate that tension, Tiffany?

 **Tiffany:** Well, I generally tell them to shove it.

 **Saul:** ...What?

 **Tiffany:** These _trenders_ have been around for fifteen seconds and decide they apparetly have the authority to destroy the idea that dresses are feminine? Please. Let the adults talk, darlings, you'll grow out of this nonsense soon enough.

 **Saul:** ...

 **Tiffany:** ...

 **Saul:** I um... Hmm...

 **Tiffany:** What's the problem Saul? Am I too real for you? Too politically incorrect? Hitting you with too much truth at once?

 **Saul:** Well, I'm mostly trying to figure out how to... _have_ a discussion about non-binary people with you. 

**Tiffany:** By just fucking having it, obviously? What, you think I can't take a little return fire?

 **Saul:** I don't have any intention to call you names or to dismiss you, Tiffany.

 **Tiffany:** Because I'm right, right? Because you don't have any real arguments?

 **Saul:** Oh, I have _arguments_ , I'm just also a journalist and _as_ a journalist my role here is to grow to understand the situation better. That includes understanding your position. While I think you're clearly presenting an incomplete view--

 **Tiffany:** Look, all I'm saying is that trans rights for _binary transsexuals_ are a real possibility we can actually achieve, while non-binary gender-fluid nonsense people should just wait their fucking turn.

 **Saul:** I understand that you’re in a lot of pain, Tiffany, but… that’s not a reason to want other people to be. 

**Tiffany:** That’s not--I don’t--It’s not about… I mean… It’s not just about… 

**Saul:** Maybe we need a break. To relax. Gather our thoughts. I’ll put on a commercial and we’ll be back in a few minutes.

[

 **Pre-Recorded Saul:** You know, I lead a life of being perpetually exhausted. I read so many books, and talk to so many people, and I have that book I keep saying I will finish soon. And you know what helps me? Every day, I take one supository of Vitalimax Plus in the morning. It just hypes me up a little, you know, and gets me ready for the day to come in a collapsing capitalist society that demands to bleed me dry of my heart and soul in exchange for allowing my body to survive undamaged by years upon years of hard manual labour. That reckless euphoria and chemically-induced indiference to pain makes a big difference in day-to-day life, let me tell you. 

Vitalimax Plus. Use the offer code GetItOpen for a fifty-percent discount at VitalimaxPlus-dot-horse on your first order.

] 

**Tiffany:** \--And in the end, this woman was just like, “it’s not fair! I’ve been a woman for thirty years and I’ve never been treated like that. You’re a woman for thirty minutes and then you magically benefit from all this weird shit I’ve only ever heard men talk about women getting.”

 **Saul:** Oops. I guess we're back on now, apparently. Um. I understand that there’s frustration from gender-nonconforming women who feel invisible when gender-conforming trans women get preferential treatment they never did, but still. That’s a terrible thing for her to say to a trans woman. After all, you have to work really hard to--

 **Tiffany:** Stop. Don’t get offended for me. Don't condescend to me.

 **Saul:** What? 

**Tiffany:** I'm not a victim! I’m my own person. I’m not one of those trans women who shout ‘transphobia’ anytime anyone says something politically incorrect.

 **Saul:** I think you're oversimplifying things, Tiffany. 

**Tiffany:** How so? 

**Saul:** You like to pretend that there are two boxes, victims and agents, and you don't want to call yourself a victim because if you do, you lose that sense of agency over your own life. Which is perfectly understandable from a personal perspective as nobody wants to identify with what other people do to them. But you are on the receiving end of these oppressive forces, and pretending you're not only gives bigots more ammunition to pretend they don't exist while perpetuating them.

 **Tiffany:** Well, maybe if I act the part, and I dress well, and I am charismatic and gorgeous and normal, we can skip the whole shaming people part! Maybe if talking to us wasn't an exercise in walking on eggshells, we'd be in a better situation.

 **Saul:** Tiffany, my people have been dressing well and 'being normal', and having respectable jobs, for centuries. It doesn't actually help. Whatever whiteness American Jews managed to acquire through secular assimilation didn't stop people from chanting in Charlottesville. As Dr. King said, it helps perpetuate the passive peace, defined by the absence of conflict, not the active peace defined by the presence of justice.

 **Tiffany:** Blah blah blah! You're a rich, able-bodied, heterosexual intellectual man, and here you are complaining that some crazies said some mean things while surrounded on all sides by counter-protestors.

 **Saul:** You realize that Heather Heyer was _murdered_ and eight more people were injured that day, right?

 **Tiffany:** Yeah, well, maybe she should have stayed home. Then she would be alive now.

 **Saul:** You can't possibly believe that. If not her, it would have been someone else. Why can't you just accept the fact that you're on the receiving end of various oppressive systems, patriarchal, misogynistic, and so on, and then as a so-called non-victim, figure out what to do with that? Why do you have this need to appease people who want to use you?

 **Tiffany:** Why can't you stop whining and be happy with your place almost all the way at the top of the hierarchy? You realize you're literally a published academic on your own talk show right now, right?

 **Saul:** Because it is a cruel, unreliable hierarchy that subjugates people. And I will not just sit down and quietly support the forces of oppression, or delude myself into thinking they will only ever be used on others. I will not support the racist, sexist, classist, etcetera blah blah blabity blah system.

 **Tiffany:** Did you seriously just say 'blabity blah'?

 **Saul:** I could see it on your face that that's what you would hear either way.

 **Tiffany:** Well you're not wrong...

 **Saul:** Why do you feel the need to disregard the forces trying to help you?

 **Tiffany:** Because I don't want you to white-knight me! I am not some broken, sad tragedy you can use as a talking point! I have power over my own actions and my own choices, and I can live my own life. I don't want your pity!

 **Saul:** Would you be willing to accept my solidarity?

 **Tiffany:** ...Your...

 **Saul:** Would you be willing to accept _anyone's_ solidarity? 

**Tiffany:** … 

**Saul:** …Tiffany? …Let’s cut to an ad. 

[

 **Pre-recorded Saul:** Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again? Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin, like a house of cards, one blow from caving in? If so, boy do I have a solution for you! Vitalimax Plus is an all-natural, sustainable blast of power that will help you get through the day with minimal sideffects. Use the offer code GetItOpen at VitalimaxPlus-dot-horse, and you'll get a fifty-percent discount! That's Vitalimax Plus, V-I-T-A-L-I-M-A-X plus dot H-O-R-S-E. 

]

 **Tiffany:** … Sorry, I just… 

**Saul:** We’re back on. Don’t worry about it. So! Um… I’m going to get kicked out of the studio soon, so I guess I’ll ask you what I ask you the same thing I ask at the end of every episode. What is something that you would recommend the audience watch or read, to better understand your stance on the issues we’ve discussed in this episode? 

**Tiffany:** Right. Um… Well, one book would be Sacred Passage, by Dr. Cockbane. It really shows you what makes something… essentially feminine. 

**Saul:** Alright. I’ll… put it in the show notes. Have a good rest of your day. 

**Tiffany:** Yeah, you too. 

**Pre-recorded Saul:** This has been The Saul Salzman Show. I am Saul Salzman. Join me next week where I will clean the aftertaste this interview left on my ears with an Antifa, furry trans-feminine polyamorous Marxist icon. The one, the only, Tabby! Until then, have a good day, and remember to engage discourse responsibly. 


	3. Glitterbeard Socrates, PART 1: Pain and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail meets an old friend.

It was a warm summer evening in a pre-pandemic world, and Abigail Cockbane was at the library. She had just finished the latest chapter in her new book, “The Forgotten Cervix”, when there was a light knock on her table. 

“Abigail? Abigail Cockbane?” asked an individual sporting a short goatee decorated with glitter and voluminous bouncing purple hair in a ponytail. Their voice was cheerful and delighted by the situation. 

Abigail frowned, then gasped with a realization. “...What… Happened to you?”

Baltimore laughed. “I wouldn’t know where to begin, may I have a seat?”

Abigail nodded, too dumbfounded by finding her old undergraduate classmate sporting a purple glitter-beard and bizarre golden fingertip rings along with flannel and all manner of adornments. 

“How have _you_ been, Abigail Cockbane? What is happening in your life? In your studies?”

Abigail frowned, and moved her index finger back and forth between her interlocutor and herself. “What is this?”

“I believe, Abigail Cockbane, that we are having a conversation.”

Abigail frowned. “...Excuse me? Am _I_ supposed to say your full name for no reason?”

“You’re not supposed to, but I would appreciate it. I go by Baltimore now.”

“Baltimore what?”

“Baltimore Maryland. Legally changed.”

“...Your _name_ is Baltimore Maryland?”

“It is _among_ my names,” they said airily.

“What? What’s your deal? What’s…” she gestured vaguely at them, “ _this_? Why do you look like a drag queen and a drag king were thrown in a blender?” she asked. She thought that was a reasonable question. 

Baltimore smiled, “well, Abigail Cockbane, over the past few years I have engaged in some exploration of myself I have since decided that my life would be better if I freed myself from the cages of ‘man’ and ‘woman’.”

Abigail groaned. “Seriously? You _too_? Why can’t you just be a feminine man?”

Baltimore tilted their head, “it is not about what I _can_ be, it is about what I _am within_. I have found in my travels that I struggle to belong among men or women, and further that I only sought to do so out of _fear_. Once I let go of that fear, and embraced my heart, I found a happiness no bigot can threaten.”

Abigail frowned. “Baltimore” had been a close enough friend of hers once that she wasn’t willing to immediately write them off, but… She _did oppose_ whatever this was. 

“But you’re just… Living in a weird delusion,” she said with a frown. 

“Am I?” Baltimore asked. “What ‘man’ and ‘woman’ mean are choices, are they not, Abigail Cockbane? After all, a great deal of the Radical Feminist movement is concerned with the abolition of gender, and therefore with the redefinition of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as purely physiological traits. Given that you are _pursuing_ a redefinition, surely redefining things is possible.”

“Well--Yes, but you’re seeking to re-define things in a direction _opposed_ to the one I’m seeking,” she said, glaring at them.

“I don’t believe we are as opposed as you believe,” they said. “After all, can the Patriarchy really survive a society in which a substantial portion of the population are mayonnaise gender?”

She chuckled and rolled her eyes. Baltimore smiled.

“I’d like to thank you, Abigail Cockbane. After all, you are the one who first introduced me to academic feminism and gender abolitionism.”

“But if the point is to _abolish_ gender, why do you tell people that wearing… Whatever this is and having a glitter beard _does_ make you less of a man?”

Baltimore tilted their head curiously. “I don’t believe I have _ever_ said that, dear friend. Do you remember me ever telling you that it is my clothing that _makes me_ non-binary?”

For the first time in a long time, Abigail Cockbane paused, realizing a failure of rigour on her part. It did not last very long. 

“Even if you don’t say it _makes_ you your gender, you _do_ dress the way you dress with the expectation that it will _communicate_ that you have declared yourself beyond basic biology.”

“I do dress in a non-conforming fashion with the desire to be recognized as a person beyond the binary, but there are many ways to do that. The specifics of my clothes and hair could be very different if all I wanted was androgyny. Do you, Abigail Cockbane, believe there is something wrong with having an eccentric fashion sense? Since, after all, it _is_ the abolitionist position that gender expression _boils down to_ sex-segregated fashion sense, and all forms of sex segregation ought be eliminated.”

“It’s not actually the idea that all forms of sex segregation should be eliminated,” Abigail said, slower now. Thinking. “It’s that… All _unjust_ forms of sex-segregation and discrimination should be eliminated. Bathrooms, for example, are a reasonable institution to uphold as sex-segregated.”

“Hmmm… Is that not a product of poor design that places us all into flimsy little boxes?”

“Do you mean... the stalls..?"

“Somewhat,” Baltimore said. “Imagine, if you will, a hypothetical world in which stalls were _properly_ constructed little rooms with _properly_ constructed locks. You’d be safe from _anyone_ in that world. Would it really be so terrible and frightening to wash your hands next to a man?”

Abigail glared at Baltimore, tensing up immediately. “It’s not _about_ that. Bathrooms are a _space_. A space in which women are allowed to _be_ without the incessant oppression of men. Imagine what you said comes to pass. Then women can go breastfeed at a bathroom, and men come in and shout aghast for them not to, as if that wasn’t the _reason for breasts_ in the first place. Women may be doing their makeup and men will feel the need to provide incessant commentary about it being ‘a lie’ somehow. And that’s not even bringing up _sexual violence_ that becomes a progressively bigger threat the more access men have to women’s spaces. We need to be _protected_ from men by _structures_ and that means not just laws, but _physical_ structures.”

“Do you truly believe, Abigail Cockbane, that I--that any person with a penis--just, automatically pose a threat to you by virtue of that great poison that is testosterone?”

“Men commit the vast majority of crimes, the vast majority of sexual crimes, and the vast majority of violent crimes, ” she said, “it is reasonable for women to be afraid of men.”

Baltimore nodded slowly. “And… the fact that changes to bathroom regulation have not resulted in a rape epidemic… that just means nothing to you?”

Abigail groaned, “Europeans have notoriously lower crime rates than Americans.” 

“Hmm… Do you know, Abigail Cockbane, that in Afghanistan, the rate of intentional homicides committed by women is [point-eight-four per hundred thousand,](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.FE.P5?locations=AF) in the year twenty-eighteen? Which is much higher than Japan’s murder rate the year prior, [zero-point-two](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/murder-homicide-rate). Meaning that, if you classified Afghan women as a country, they would commit more murders than Japanese men _and_ women combined.”

She shrugged. “So poverty and a corrupt government make people more violent. I don’t know what that’s supposed to tell me. Sure, a hypothetical society that was Japan only for men and Afghanistan only for women would have this situation reversed. I don’t live in that society.”

“But you could. Such a society could exist. It would be a very bizarre and sexist society, but it would be a _possible_ society nonetheless.”

Abigail rolled her eyes. 

“Does it not stand to reason then that men could become _less_ violent, as they already have, Abigail Cockbane? That trying to change society to become less violent, and trying to help men with a propensity for violence, would result in a safer society than just trying to sex-segregate spaces so the more violent subsection of the population never interacts with the less violent one?”

She looked aside. “I didn’t say never.”

“But you would prefer it. If it was never. Wouldn’t you, Abigail Cockbane?”

She frowned and looked aside. If the same amount of funding and resources could be guaranteed, absolutely. Valerie Solanas wasn’t _all_ wrong...

“You’ve said that if trans women were feminine men, you would support them. That wearing certain clothes does not ‘make’ you a man or a woman. And I believe both statements are true,” Baltimore said with a conceding gesture of their hand, “And yet… If being a man or a woman is so meaningless a feature of life that I can do whatever I want without it affecting me… What exactly is the point in me having a binary identity at all?”

Abigail glared at Baltimore. They smiled, a little smugly. 

“If someone says that you can behave and present in whatever way you want, but you have to stick to binary expression and pronouns… Well, Abigail Cockbane, then they’re not letting you behave and present the way you want, are they?”

Abigail tensed up, and Baltimore could see they were losing her. They looked at her with concern. “You suffer a lot of fear, don’t you, Abigail Cockbane?”

“I--I do,” Abigail said. 

“I saw your interview, you know,” Baltimore said. “It made me think a great deal.”

“Oh? About what?”

“About fear. And about feeling _empty_ inside… It’s very curious to me how much of our lives is spent worrying that we are not as we should be by a standard we haven’t fully understood. I wish I could rid you of that fear. Perhaps… You could join me in a prayer?”

“No, I’m--I’m not religious.”

“How curious,” they said, tilting their head. “You know, religion is more than a handful of metaphysical beliefs. It is a community. An ethical standard by which you live your life. A source of hope. If I didn’t know better, I would most certainly believe that you _are_ religious, and your religion is Gender Critical Feminism, Abigail Cockbane.”

Abigail groaned, “come _fucking_ on, my beliefs are based on historical evidence, on sociology, on psychology, on _academic_ _literature_.”

“It is interesting that you’ve become defensive, Abigail Cockbane. After all, I was just _defending_ religion. I cannot possibly have been using it to insult you.”

She looked aside, “religion, and _the irrational_ more generally, has been coded feminine for some time, and I object to that comparison on the grounds that it has been used to disregard feminism too much for it to be rid of the implication.”

Baltimore made an open gesture of concession. 

“Very well. You know, Abigail Cockbane… Being an AMAB person who dresses in a non-conforming or feminine fashion is quite dangerous. Trans women face vastly more violence proportionately than cis women.”

Abigail rolled her eyes, “yes, because femininity is systematically undervalued in society. It is _men_ in society who attack trans women and murder them, and it is _men_ in society who decide that a man who dresses like a woman is being _degraded_ down to her status. Trans women are not attacked because they’re ‘transgender’, they’re attacked because they’re men performing femininity and femininity is degradation.”

Baltimore laughed a little at that. After all, in their ears, the argument sounded very strange. _They aren’t being attacked for being transgender_ , it seemed like Abigail was saying, _only for being transgender and people noticing that._ Still, they did not highlight it. Abigail continued.

“The entire premise of the gay panic response is that men react to the very _notion_ of the violation of heteronormativity--and of the idea that they may have been complicit in it without wanting to--with violence. With hate. It is not _women’s responsibility_ to police the violence men place on other men, whether those men are wearing wigs or not.”

“Is it not women’s responsibility to pursue the de-stigmatization of femininity, though, Abigail Cockbane? To ensure that it _isn’t_ degrading if a man dresses like a woman?”

Abigail paused again. Without a presumed audience, she was beginning to struggle against the impassive curiosity Baltimore was responding with. The peaceful and unaffected manner in which they carried themself in that conversation. 

“Yes. But they can’t do that alone,” she said. “Women cannot talk their way out of their own oppression _by men_. Men need to change, and laws need to change to stop them.” 

“If you believe it is _men_ who need to change, and you believe trans women _are_ men who _are_ changing and experiencing the world in a vastly different fashion thus, then are they not the very people you desire?”

“No!” she said, reflexively. “Because trans women are _appropriating_ women’s spaces. They are _claiming_ to be women. If they were just feminine men, I would support them, as I have _already said_ many times.”

“What is the difference between participating in a political class and appropriating that political class, if your material conditions shift to accommodate the fact that you now belong to such a class, Abigail Cockbane?” 

“...The difference is whether it is voluntary,” she said, eventually, her shoulders tensing up again. “It’s not _fair_ that an entire section of the population suddenly believes that they can just _opt into_ and _opt out_ of womanhood!”

Baltimore tilted their head to the side. “Does it feel more fair if they also believe that _you,_ Abigail Cockbane, can opt out of womanhood?”

Abigail paused.

She had, of course, questioned her gender identity once or twice. It’s only natural to do that, when you have no gender identity and everyone around you keeps discussing “gender” as if it was a primarily internal phenomenon and not one of social enforcement.

But the question she had always been exposed to was “do I want to be a man?”, and seeing men as disgusting oppressors always made the answer to that an obvious “no”. The question, in isolation, of “do I want to be a woman” was different. There was something unsettling about it, in the same way it is unsettling whenever you realize you were resigned to something you did not realize you were resigned to. 

“That’s…” she struggled for the right words. The right answer. The answer that fit with what she knew. “That’s just not-like-other-girls taken to its logical conclusion. It’s internalized misogyny. _Of course_ nobody _wants_ to be a woman, because being a woman is defined by oppression. If it wasn’t, biological reality wouldn’t be something to fear. People who think they _can_ opt out are just delusional.”

“And yet, Abigail Cockbane, your opposition _is_ to people who _want_ to be women. Do they not falsify your notion that _nobody_ wants to be a woman?”

“Well, _they’re_ disgusting fetishists, and all they can talk about is having breasts and smelling different, and wearing stereotypical nonsense.”

“How do you explain _asexual_ trans women?”

Abigail frowned, “well, they’re... lying.”

Baltimore Maryland did not have to ask a question at that point. They merely raised an eyebrow and tapped the table, and it was enough for her to sigh. The silence dragged on, though, and so they eventually came up with a question to ask. 

“If you see non-binary people as women who are attempting to distance themselves to be ‘not like other girls’ because they find femininity oppressive… What do you make of non-binary people like myself?”

“Well, you’re just… A weird gay man with a quirky fashion sense and a penchant for demanding weird language out of people.”

Baltimore laughed. “And what would it mean to you to learn that I have been with _all manner_ of people?”

“Fine, a weird _bi_ man, then,” she said, rolling her eyes. 

“Pan,” they corrected her, “And if I am sufficiently ‘weird’ as a man that another label is more fitting, why should _your discomfort_ dictate what I do with my life, Abigail Cockbane?”

Abigail frowned. A great many things were going through her head. The most salient of them being that she was not _in_ a debate. She was not teaching a class. She was not being recorded. And therefore, a little echo of what “Adria” had said ran its way through her mind. For the first time in that conversation, she asked a question she _actually_ wanted to know the answer to. 

“...Baltimore,” Abigail struggled, but managed, to say. “Are _you_ agender?”

They laughed. “I am not. I believe you and I have opposite problems, Abigail Cockbane. My feelings around gender are too many, and yours… too few.”

“Too few for _what_?” she asked, a little defensively. 

“That _is_ the question to ask in a transphobic society, isn’t it, Abigail Cockbane?”

Abigail frowned. This time, her frown was not angry or tense. She wasn’t upset. She was curious. 

“Who _benefits_ from everyone performing and expressing their gender in predictable, expected ways?” Baltimore asked. “Why have _you,_ Abigail Cockbane, desired a world that expands the definition of woman to fit someone like you, instead of a world in which you can be some flavour of a gender _separatist_ , and step _beyond_ their preconceptions of what a man or a woman is? In the process... decoupling your body from normative femininity altogether.”

Abigail nodded thoughtfully. 

“Non-binary genders as political lesbianism?” Abigail asked with a frown. 

“No, nothing of the sort, Abigail Cockbane,” Baltimore said, “After all, I am being true to _myself_ , not _aiming_ to make a statement. If my existence is a statement, I think that says more about society than it says about me. The political situation is simply the process of creating a world more _amenable_ to people like me.”

“...A process of destroying the enforcement of the very _notion_ of gender,” she said. “A process in which the notion of gender as _internal_ makes enforcement of rules based on it… Completely personally voluntary. So one’s genitals have no consequence on one’s life prospects.”

“Ideally,” Baltimore said, “there will always be bigots, of course. But we can have a trans-inclusive, and indeed trans- _celebratory_ notion of gender abolitionism, in which what we are abolishing is all of the _mechanisms_ by which gender can be policed.”

It was more attractive than Abigail was willing to say at the moment. But it still felt wrong, no matter that her heart leapt a little at the idea. 

“...In a sexist society, purely voluntary enforcement of gender norms will be biased in favour of those who _have_ the will to do the enforcement to begin with. Those whose status is threatened by it. Which would just converge on men enforcing women’s presentation and behaviour yet again, because it is in their interest to keep women subservient to them. It’s just sexism with nicer language.”

“I would invite you, Abigail Cockbane, to ask yourself _why_ you believe the language is _nicer_ to begin with,” they said. “Why does the notion of purely voluntary gendered behaviour strike you as _good_ and not… Somehow problematic?”

Abigail frowned, “because all I want is to be just a person. To be rid of the shackles of womanhood. But that won’t happen if I dye my hair and call myself a cloudfae genderfuck.”

“So… You _want_ to be non-binary, you just don’t believe you would be successful.”

Abigail swallowed. 

“I want _everyone_ to be _just a person_. Where biological sex is a simple physical reality, and not a mechanism of oppression.”

“What about the _cis_ women who enjoy traditionally feminine pursuits?”

“What _about_ them?” 

“Would they have a place in your world?”

“Yes? So would everyone. The point is for man and woman to _stop meaning_ blue and pink, strong and weak, honourable and sinister, active and passive. Not to get rid of pink, or something.”

“But one of the main attractions of such things _is_ the gendering. Cis women often wear feminine clothing, [get breast implants](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4xxMhz55RQ), and even choose phone cases specifically for the purpose of _gendering_ themselves. And this is not just a question of toxic socialization of women and not men, not in a world in which [smoke and whiskey soap exists](https://www.amazon.ca/Outlaw-Soaps-Fire-Hole-Gunpowder/dp/B00GCYMYMU).” Baltimore chuckled at the absurdity, “Obviously, the notion of emasculation being _painful_ is wrapped up in sexism, but there is also a visceral fear of _loss_ involved and that loss is not only anxiety about privilege. People find _selfhood_ and _reassurance_ in having their gender affirmed, and this happens even with cis people and even when they are gender-conforming cis people at that.”

Abigail frowned.

Baltimore shrugged. “It may be politically _good_ to try to be rid of notions of social gender markers, but it’s not necessarily realistic to expect it to happen if _cis_ people whose gender identity _is not even in question_ still seek that kind of affirmation and reassurance.”

There was a tension building within Abigail Cockbane. On the one hand, the question of sisterhood and of “womanhood” as a form of solidarity against an oppressive patriarchy was _the_ only thing that had given her life meaning for the past decade, _the_ only thing that had made her feel like she had a community in a world that was forcefully shoving her into bizarre roles and stereotypes that made her feel like some sort of alien or monster for failing to fit in.

On the other hand… It was the _only_ thing that had given her life meaning for the past decade. The _only_ thing that made her feel like she had a community. No matter how she tried, how much feminist rhetoric she read, how many great women she looked up to… It never felt like it was “enough”. It never felt like she actually _belonged_ in any space of women, unless they also were angry radical feminists seeking to abolish gender. She had very few friends, and so many of her colleagues treated her as if she was this strange creature whose irrational wrath at the social macro-structures was based on fact, yet still somehow not the “normal way to think”. The same way that someone might think that yes, it is the case that factory farming involves the brutalization, slaughter, and torture of millions of animals, and yes, those things are bad, but also “why do you care so much?” and “of course I’m not going to change my diet because of it!”. 

Or, perhaps the same way that someone might think that yes, it is the case that vanilla flavouring _is_ derived from castoreum, and that _is_ kind of gross… But also vanilla ice cream isn’t gross and goes through a series of hygiene-ensuring processes, so why do you care so much? I’m not going to stop eating vanilla ice cream because of beaver butt glands, even if I _would_ be happy once they figured out how to synthesize castoreum by genetically engineering e. Coli to produce it as a waste product or something.

Which of the two was a category error? Was it only one?

Didn’t… Most women feel like they _belonged_ , at least a little, with other women? 

Why did she feel so torn between “your definition of womanhood should expand to include me” and… “Fine, I guess I’m _not_ a woman, then”? _What wall_ did she feel pressed against?

Why was she still entertaining this costumed man’s points?

Baltimore seemed to take this opportunity to shift the direction of this conversation a little sideways. 

“Tell me, Abigail Cockbane… Do you like Star Trek?” they asked with a smile. 

Abigail half-groaned half-laughed. “I guess? It’s _okay_. I like _Janeway,_ specifically. And at least they _try_ not to be _that_ sexist.”

Baltimore nodded, “you know their transporters?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“If you could have _access_ to a transporter, Abigail Cockbane, and you could choose to have your atoms be re-organized in whatever way you deemed fit, with whatever traits you want… What would you choose to be?”

“If I could be anything at all?”

“Anything at all. Biology is no longer a factor, technology has surpassed it. Desire is the most important variable. If you could be anything at all, in an enlightened society that would not use it against you…” they smiled kindly at her. “What would you choose to be, Abigail Cockbane?”

 _I’d get a mastectomy and a hysterectomy immediately_ , she thought but didn’t say. She immediately rejected the notion. There was nothing wrong with her body, what was wrong was society and what they said about it. If sexism truly was gone, she wouldn’t feel this way. 

Right?

... _Right_? 

“It still seems unfair to… Unless everyone had access, I guess…”she said with a frown. “Even then...”

“You don’t have to answer right now,” Baltimore said. 

“This doesn’t _mean_ anything,” she mumbled. “It’s fundamentally wrong to… This isn’t an _option_ , any more than Rachel Dolezal creates an option for black people to opt out of blackness by telling a police officer that _actually_ , they _identify as white_.”

“Tell me, Abigail Cockbane… If you abolish _sexism_ , and spend all your time in a deserted island or surrounded by radical feminists, will that free you from your struggle?”

She wanted to shout “yes”. But she couldn’t. She had _been_ in radical feminist conferences, the closest thing to that hypothetical desert island she might ever get to. There was some relief there, but not nearly as much as would be necessary for her to feel… “Free” of it all.


	4. Glitterbeard Socrates, Part 2: Knowledge and Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail makes a choice.

“I don’t think you’ve actually answered my concern about this whole thought experiment being unfair,” Abigail said, as the conversation grew longer and more frustrating. “So what if  _ some _ women--who are victims of toxic socialization--care about gendering themselves? Ultimately, identifying as non-binary is still trying to escape marginalization by the patriarchy to try to identify your way out of womanhood, and you’re just… Joining the club of young women doing that. Thinking you can be another gender by saying so when intersex people are systematically oppressed is insane.”

“That’s very curious. I would think non-binary AFAB people to be marginalized by the patriarchy regardless. You know, since their reproductive rights are still at risk but on top of that they have the weaponized ableism of ‘being crazy’ laid atop them by people who are supposed to be their allies..? Is that not a relevant variable, Abigail Cockbane?” 

Abigail glared at them. 

“It doesn’t matter that they  _ fail _ ,” she said. “The fact of the matter is that they are trying to bypass oppression for themselves and not for others. We have to work to dismantle the oppression of women, not to make women  _ stop being women _ to escape oppression. And people who benefit from transmasculine transition are trying to get acceptance for themselves at the cost of upholding sexism, just like respectability politics”

“So we go back to the earlier point in this conversation. Where I said that you, Abigail Cockbane,  _ want _ to be non-binary, you just don’t believe you would be successful.”

Abigail frowned.

“I don’t think  _ anyone _ can be successful at changing their sex,” she said, sitting up taller. “And yes, that would include me.”

“Why is that?” Baltimore asked.

“You can’t be serious. You yourself are sporting a--a  _ glitter-beard _ . Your entire situation seems to just be… being loudly gay.”

“Pan,” they corrected gently.

“Sure,” she said with a scoff, “every ‘trans woman’ I have ever met has performed this comical stereotype of femininity. A  _ man’s _ idea of what a woman is like. There’s even people whose entire  _ jobs _ it is to coach trans women away from being caricatures! Something you don’t need to teach cis women to do. Cis women don’t have to be[ taught the difference between a classy dress and porn star clothing,](https://www.monicaprata.com/#dreams) and would never confuse the two.  ”

“Except Adria,” Baltimore said with a gentle gesture.

“What?”

“Every trans woman you’ve met except Adria. I watched your interview, Abigail Cockbane, I know you’ve talked to her.”

Abigail paused. “Yes. Except Adria,” she conceded.

“You raise an important point, Abigail Cockbane. It is true that many trans women struggle with performing a subdued or ‘standard’ form of gender-conforming femininity. I assume you will agree with me that this is a tragedy enforced by gender-segregated child-rearing practices.”

Abigail tilted her head at them. “I’m sorry, what?”

“If people socialized male early in their childhood were more encouraged to interact with those socialized female, without fears that they will be predatory while they’re still small children, without allusions to them having ‘romances’ while they’re  _ children _ , without remark and without strict enforcement of rules, then people assigned male at birth who chose to transition later in life would not be mystified by femininity, and would not confuse it for whatever they have personally learned is seen as ‘attractive’ in women.”

“That’s--That’s ridiculous!” she said with a scoff. 

“If there was a cohort of  _ cis _ women, say… Mennonites or something. Who were excluded from female spaces in their childhood, were told that they were ‘really’ men all their lives and their own thoughts on the matter didn’t mean much, who were often placed in position to prove their manliness because people could tell their heart wasn’t in it, who were told that what they have is a disgusting, fetishistic disorder and were socialized to  _ believe that _ … And then they went against this oppressive regime and tried to live as the women that they are… Would their failure to perform femininity as it is defined by women in their in-groups, and their tendency to perform it as it is defined by men, be a sign of their moral bankruptcy? Or would it be a tragic consequence of their upbringing and environment? A feminist reframing of the DuBoisian double-consciousness, perhaps.”

Abigail looked away. That did sound tragic. But it was a lie, in her eyes. Baltimore continued.

“Are you familiar with the concept of Epistemic Injustice, Abigail Cockbane?”

She scoffed, “of course I’m familiar with Fricker.”

“Ah, and what do you think about her framework?”

She shrugged, “Fricker’s failures are well-known, I’m not very interested in rehashing the critiques of ‘white feminism’ that have been lobbied at her.”

“But what do you think about ‘being made a fool’?”

Abigail frowned, remembering. Fricker’s notion of being made a fool was expressed somewhat poorly in her original book, but better thinkers had outlined it since then. 

The idea was that, say, imagine a white racist who believes that black people are incapable of higher thought. Not only is the black person being subjected to epistemic injustice in that framework because their ability to contribute to shared knowledge is being crippled, the white racist is suffering from injustice by lacking access to whatever brilliant insights the black person may have had and shared. 

The same could be applied to sexism, of course. Entire features of human psychology have been hidden from the field for decades, and only unearthed now that women are being studied in representative samples alongside men. Entire perspectives--brilliant perspectives--were buried, ignored, dismissed and sometimes even destroyed. Yes, that meant that those brilliant women suffered, but it also meant that every man who could have benefitted from their brilliance  _ didn’t _ . The world was worse for  _ everyone _ under a system where women were not allowed to be educated, were not allowed to thrive, had their voices minimized. Because men were made fools.

That’s how you could have hundreds of thousands of women join the #MeToo movement, and men gasp startled that sexual assault could be such a big problem in their society.

Abigail didn’t know it, but the same was true for transphobic people. 

An entire world of ideas and interests and insights was closed off from every transphobic person who thought that transgender people didn’t have anything to offer  _ them _ . 

“Imagine being so _ removed _ from  _ your people,” _ Baltimore said, “that your idea of who they are is designed by those who hate them. This is a struggle that underlies every gender and sexual minority, but it also affects people with minority religions, or the children of immigrants from vilified places.”

She frowned. “Knowledge is power. It is influenced by power, it is shaped by power, to know something is to learn what power has to say about it.”

Baltimore smiled. “Exactly. And what does that mean, when you are being  _ kept _ from power?”

She rolled her eyes, completely certain that trans people had nothing to offer her, and therefore unaware of the truth she was being offered. This whole thing was ridiculous. 

“Trans people are routinely changing legislation, but you all want to pretend that you have no power what-so-ever.”

Baltimore frowned and tilted their head. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean, Baltimore, that if I was a teenager now, I would probably be labelled ‘transgender’ by school officials and medical ‘experts’, and it would just be a product of your bizarre agenda to erase gender-non-conforming women.”

Baltimore chuckled, “why is it that you see progress, and you think people are being  _ erased _ instead of enabled to live happier lives? What if you  _ are _ trans, Abigail? And your whole life could be easier if you stopped suppressing it?”

She shook her head. “That’s not… That whole thing depends on this stupid dogma about ‘gender identity’ that doesn’t… Mean anything! They’re not  _ women _ . They’re deluded men!”

“Why, Abigail Cockbane, do you think that the thesis of gender identity is wrong?”

“What? You must be joking. It’s self-evidently bullshit.”

“How come? What is the problem with defining ‘woman’ as ‘everyone who self-identifies as a woman’?”

“Because  _ I _ am a woman,” Abigail said with a glare. “I am a woman. And I don’t  _ identify _ as anything. I don’t have a gender ‘identity’ any more than I have a racial ‘identity’. Gender is what  _ happens _ to me when I get catcalled in the street, when men send me unsolicited pictures of their dicks, when people call me  _ ‘he’ _ in online fora when I say something interesting that has nothing to do with gender, but ‘she’ the moment I start advocating for equality. It’s not an  _ identity _ , it is not a  _ feeling _ , it is a social condition and social conditions can change. Can be eliminated.”

For the first time in the whole conversation, Baltimore seemed startled. They looked at Abigail with those big bright eyes of theirs. 

“...Would you like to  _ eliminate _ womanhood, Abigail Cockbane?”

She glared. “As a mechanism of oppression, yes. Obviously.”

“But… Isn’t  _ that _ erasing women?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not erasing women to want to give them a higher standard of living.”

“...It is if you define ‘women’ as people whose standard of living is below a certain threshold due to social conditions they are affected by.”

She laughed.

“Abigail Cockbane, in your ideal world, as a gender abolitionist, are there women?”

“No,” she answered simply. “There are no women, and there are no men. There are just people. Some have XX chromosomes and some have XY chromosomes. And the words ‘men’ and ‘women’ refer to  _ that _ . Not to social condition. Not to  _ fashion sense.  _ Not to whether or not you’re really into K-pop.”

“In your perfect world, then… wouldn’t everyone be non-binary?”

Abigail frowned. “...Everyone already is. Your people are always pointing at science that says that intersex conditions ought to undermine the concept of sex. Well, if I agreed with that--which I  _ don’t _ \-- then that would only be one additional arrow in  _ my _ quiver. After all, if everything is ‘gender’, then  _ nothing is _ . If you want to eliminate the basics of sexual dimorphism, what we are left with is a social and economic underclass being marginalized over meaningless propaganda.”

“So why is it that you oppose being the change you wish to see in the world?”

Abigail scoffed. “Excuse me?”

“If, in your perfect world, everybody would be non-binary, why do you oppose the people who are slowly making that happen? Especially if you believe the ‘social contagion’ theory of gender identity, where it’s a matter of exposure. Surely, more people identifying as non-binary means more people participating in the world you want to live in, does it not?”

Abigail glared and sputtered something out, then started to rub her temples in frustration. “Do you  _ hear yourself  _ when you speak?”

“You want the whole world to be non-binary. Part of the world being non-binary is closer to that than none of the world being non-binary. Why do you oppose the people who comprise that part of the world that is approaching what you  _ want _ to happen?”

She looked aside. “That’s ridiculous. The ‘non-binary’ I desire is prescriptivist in nature, I don’t want anyone denying their biology.”

Baltimore chuckled. “You said gender is what happens to you when you get catcalled on the street. If all of those mechanisms of gender enforcement were erased, your biology would be intact. Either be a bioessentialist or a social constructionist, girl, both at once is not consistent. You said you want a world where everyone is non-binary, Abigail Cockbane. Why not be the change you wish to see in the world?”

“Because--Because…” She was upset, and frustrated, and tired. Tired of Baltimore’s stupid, nonsense arguments, tired of denying the obvious. “Because maybe I don’t want to be some sort of freakish social pariah who’s constantly getting on everyone’s case about their language for no reason,” she spat out. 

Baltimore laughed.

“I’m serious!” she insisted, “this whole thing is  _ ridiculous _ , I’m not going to turn myself into an intellectual laughing stock to… to…”

“How is it non-binary people are so powerful and frightening when you are fighting against them, but also so powerless and persecuted when you consider the notion of coming out as one?” Baltimore asked. 

Abigail paused. 

“You should be glad to become non-binary if you geniuinely believe non-binary people and ‘transgender ideology’ have so much political pull, shouldn’t you? The same way you said you’d be happy to gain male privilege.”

She pressed her lips together.

They sat in silence for a long moment, Baltimore with a self-satisfied smile, Abigail frozen in frustration. 

“It’s… It’s not  _ fair _ if…” she started, but it was a reflex. She didn’t even know what angle to use, what direction to go in, why she was even speaking. They were right. She was afraid. 

Baltimore said nothing. 

“The history of women is a history of oppression, just opening the door to...” she tried again. 

At this, Baltimore perked up. “Is that not the inherent unfairness of progress? When we make the world better, we solve problems other people had to live with unsolved. ”

She swallowed. Baltimore seemed to take this as a sign that they should continue speaking. 

“Would you  _ like to _ present differently?” they asked. 

She said nothing.

“Would you like to look different? Be seen differently?” they asked. 

She said nothing. 

“Would you like it if people saw you and thought something other than ‘woman’?”

Abigail could barely manage to hold back an angry and grieving “yes”, but she did it. She stayed silent. 

“What do you  _ actually want _ , Abigail Cockbane? You’re in a lot of pain, and you have a lot of anger and fear. How may it be cleansed? What will it take for you to take my love into your heart?” 

“I need to leave,” she said, grabbed her books, and stalked out without another word. 

Baltimore sat there, a little tired and disappointed. They thought it had been going so well. Abigail had been such an egg during their undergrad, it was obvious to anyone who knew what to look for. 

Maybe that was the problem. She had gotten used to averting her gaze.

Abigail didn’t have to go very far to find the psychological safety of the familiar. A couple of her friends were having coffee just outside the library and happily welcomed her to their table. They talked about deadlines, and about their students, and around half an hour after she’d come out of the library, Baltimore made an appearance on its steps, talking to someone on their phone. 

One of Abigail’s friends noticed and scoffed, “Ugh, look at  _ that _ over there,” she said.

“He looks like a drag queen and a drag king were thrown in a blender,” the other said in agreement. Abigail swallowed.

The first one continued on. “I’m so sick of pervs like that having the  _ gall _ to bring their mental illness into the public square.”

Another chided her. “Don’t be ableist! People like that is why we need to bring back inpatient facilities. If he could just be a feminine man, we’d wholeheartedly support him.”

It slipped out. Entirely against her will, entirely unthinking, it just slipped out of her mouth like a foot in an oversized shoe. 

“They,” she said. Too quietly for them to hear, especially as they were both looking at Baltimore and away from her. 

“Did you say something, Abigail?” one of them asked, turning to face her. 

Abigail could have repeated herself. She could have explained what she was feeling, or at least requested a change of topic. She could have left. She could have done a lot of things. An entire life, a radically different one, could have unfolded in that instant. She could have lost so much of what made her who she had become over the past several years. She could have gained even more, changed, grown beyond spending her time with miserable people whose favourite past-time was to criticize strangers they don’t know for living lives they can’t understand. 

She didn’t. She couldn’t. She swallowed and shook her head. 

“I didn’t say anything,” she muttered and drank more of her water. 

“You know,” one of them started with a smile, “I’m dying to know what your new book is going to be about!”

Abigail chuckled humorlessly. “So am I.”

-

-

-

-

On the other side of that street, Baltimore Maryland walked out of view of the café. They walked past a handful of clothing stores, and a bookstore, and a bar, and a restaurant, and eventually found their way to a little tattoo parlor, with a staircase on the side. 

They walked down the stairs, and they entered a room. Inside it was a tall woman with black and white hair, sporting fake cat ears. Beside the transgender furry was a different tall woman, with a flannel shirt and glasses. 

“Well hello, ladies,” Baltimore said. “I hope I’m not too late.”

"Oh, don't worry about it, Baltimore," Adria said, spreading out a little on the couch, "we still haven't settled on what type of takeout to order."

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of what will hopefully be many attempts at working within the frame of ContraPoints while expanding on the arguments she tends to put forth.


End file.
